In which I disclose a secret about a cat, a washing machine and a huge mistake.

I had that whole resolution thing to not go on my computer past 10 o'clock but this is super important and so I'm blatently ignoring it from this point forward. Now that I've made that clear I should probably try to hook you into reading this blog because if I don't irony strikes seeing as how I'm writing this about hooks. Hopefully, the title will do it for you. The secret is a lie, as is the cake.* You won't be getting any of either.

I'm about 70 pages into To Kill a Mockingbird and I realize I should be farther as tomorrow marks the midpoint of this month but alas, I am not. I come to you today to talk about hooks and why they are more important today than they were in 1960.

I think there were probably less books published 50 years ago but that is purely based on my assumption so don't quote me in your thesis papers. With there being a smaller selection, I'm thinking there would be a little less competition than we apparently have in the book selling market today. Therefore, good books didn't have to immediately pull the reader into the story, they could do it slowly with more tact and skill, knowing that even if the beginning was a tad slow, the reader wouldn't put it back on the shelf after the first page.

I broached this idea to my mother and she said that not only were there less books, people had a longer attention span in 1960 (generally speaking). Today, we are bamboozled with ads and television and computers and technology and books seem somewhat dimmer in that light to some people. We seem to have less time than ever, despite all the technologies that are made to make our lives easier. And so when one is wandering the aisles of a bookstore, if one doesn't immediately feel compelled to read the novel in one's hand then one doesn't, because one already has enough to do and read (i.e. The Penelopiad for English).

To Kill a Mockingbird didn't start out with all the adults in town disappearing *coughGonecough* but I have more stock in it than I did with Michael Grant's novel. I have a feeling that I hold something excellent in my hands with To Kill a Mockingbird (only not right now because I'm typing and that's not practical).

Isn't that a positively profound thought I just documented? Will someone please record this in the history of my life so that I can go back sometime in the future and be like, "Yeah, when I was fifteen years old, I was SMART!" Oh wait, I kind of already did that. With this blog. Yes, I realize that was a bad joke. Sometimes, they just have to be made. Sorry about that.

So, no, the first chapter didn't exactly grab me but am I still going to read it? Yes. That's kind of beside the point, as the reason for this blog is so I can read books and pretend someone cares what I have to say about them. But yes, I'm still going to read it.

I have an urge to say 'stay tuned' but I won't other than to tell you that I won't be saying it.

*I don't understand that saying and yet I use it. Maybe it's a smart people thing.